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TRANSFORMATION OF NEW SMART TOILET ARCHITECTURE IN THE ERA OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA 1OSUNKUNLE ABDULMAGEED 2SHUAIBU BALOGUN 3ODETOYE

SUNDAY ADEOLA 4EHIAGWINA

FREDERICK O. 1Department of Architectural Technology,

Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi 2Department of

Mechanical Engineering Technology, Federal

Polytechnic, Bauchi 3Department of

Architecture, Ladoke Akintola University,

Ogbomoso 4Department of Electrical

Engineering Technology, Federal Polytechnic,

Offa

Introduction According to Leslie D, Patrick F. H., David A.

C., Mark F., Jonathan A. E., Kevin V. W. (2020),

the rapid spread of severe acute respiratory

syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that

results in corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-

19), corporate entities, federal, state, county,

and city governments, universities, school

districts, places of worship, prisons, health

care facilities, assisted living organizations,

daycares, homeowners, and other building

owners and occupants have an opportunity to

reduce the potential for transmission through

Abstract The transformation

agenda in this on-going

work was as a result of the

global COVID-19

pandemic, since late 2019

till date, which paved way

for the purpose of

harnessing new

approaches and

opportunities in Smart

Toilet Architecture as one

of the solutions to the

menace in Nigeria. The

recent concern for the

introduction of Smart

Toilet Architecture have

led to the revival on the

rate of Open Defecation

(OD) and also that of

health, sanitation and

hygiene in the Nigerian

built environment. The

professional practice of the

construction team in

actualizing open

defecation free status of

health, sanitation and

hygiene of the National

Development issues can

never be overestimated in

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AND RESEARCH

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esponse to many challenges of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

number 6 on sanitation. Also, a healthy nation is central to all physical,

social, technological, economic growth and sustainability. The Nigerian

health sector is known to be faced with inadequate sanitary facilities like toilets,

hand washing facilities, services and equipment. Hence, this work focused on the

functional requirements that are converted to engineering specifications,

systematic design approach in Smart Toilet architecture design and

construction that is applied for the conceptual design. Systematic design

approach involves functional analysis of the design problem, required of the new

smart toilet is decomposed to obtain sub-functions. Furthermore, solutions are

generated to the design problems at sub-function level and the solutions are

combined by solution matching to obtain combinatorial optimal solutions

based on the listed criteria and solution options. A new smart toilet product was

finally evolved with a leg pedal control sliding door with fixed hand washing

facilities. In conclusion, the study under investigation also further discusses

issues of immense contribution to the design, construction and operation of

COVID-19 compliant Smart Toilet which recommended that government with

stakeholders should strictly enforce the law the ‘Use of Toilet Campaign’,

advocacy on health, sanitation and hygiene in the Nigerian built environment,

sanitation marketing and finance towards the attainment of Smart Toilet

Architecture towards Open Defecation Free (ODF) and COVID-19 free Nigeria.

KEYWORDS: Advocacy, Health, open defecation, sanitation and technological.

uilt environment. As a result of the built environment, COVID-19 and

the copper according to Kathryn (2020) proclaimed that Great Lakes

Stainless is a manufacturer in Traverse City that has designed and

produced copper plating to cover door handles and other touch points. The

company says copper is the only metal that is registered to kill off germs and

reduce the transference of viruses. Scotty (2019) also narrated that a pair of

students in Hong Kong have created a self-cleaning door handle as the device

uses ultraviolet light to cause a chemical reaction that kills germs which in

tests, it was able to kill 99.8% of microbes on the door handle.

Hence, partial or full lockdowns was observed at least half of the global

communities as a result of the COVID-19 and the architectural stay at home is

the best drug known so far. When the novel corona virus tore through China

r

b

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but the research done so far in China hasn’t generated enough data for

conclusive answers even with an experimental antiviral drug called

remdesivir, the anti malarial drug chloroquine (or the related

hydroxychloroquine), a combination of two HIV drugs, and those same two

HIV drugs along with the anti-inflammatory interferon beta (Nicole, 2020).

COVID-19 and the special project proposals had attracted global participants

in research all over the world to contribute immensely in the fight against

Corona virus infections with leading health experts from around the world

have been meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters

to assess the current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease,

identify gaps and work together to accelerate and fund priority research

needed to help stop this outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks

(WHO, 2020). Also, COVID-19 and the world religions of Judaism, Christianity

and Islam have united and come together to fight their common enemy of

COVID-19 pandemic as Faith leaders from Christianity, Judaism and Islam

support government efforts to control the corona virus (Mohammed, Burton

and Bob, 2020).

Therefore, the news cycle around the world over is now entirely focused on

the corona virus pandemic, the dangers of COVID-19 and the importance of

contact tracing, social distancing, isolation and quarantine are the prevention

methods (Narayana, 2020). Another good prevention method of the dangers

of COVID-19 is through good water sanitation and hygiene (WASH). Good

WASH and waste management practices, that are consistently applied, serve

as barriers to human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus in homes,

communities, health care facilities, schools, and other public spaces (World

Bank, 2020).

Again, the professional practice of the construction team in actualizing Open

Defecation Free (ODF) status of health, sanitation and hygiene of the national

development issues can never be overestimated in response to many

challenges of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) number 6 on sanitation.

The toilet is a space inside or outside the building for defecation and urination

with comfort and privacy. Therefore, the toilet architecture deals with all the

relevant aspects of internal and external considerations of providing a

comfortable space to defecate for households and public environments. In

reality, Open Defecation (OD) remains a huge obstacle for people and is

responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths. Eradicating it is crucial to

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achieving SDG Goal number 6 on sanitation. Some Bauchi communities were

triggered effectively with Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) and

embark on a journey of rapid collective behavioural change; achieving ODF

status and getting certified as such are important milestone in the process

rather than the end of the journey. Therefore, toilet architecture changes with

situations and conditions, needs and requirements of the community in order

to migrate from OD to ODF.

Sanitation and hygiene is a public health issue not just an individual

household concern. Even if only a few families do not practice safe sanitation

and hygiene, the whole community is at risk. Therefore the aim is to achieve

100% coverage of improved sanitation and safe hygiene practices. The

achievement of which is both a collective responsibility and benefit.

According to the UNICEF/WHO (2012), 82% of the 1.1 billion people

practicing open defecation live in 10 countries and Nigeria is one of them. The

others are India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Nepal, China, Sudan, Niger and

Mozambique. It means that to continue with the use of un-improved pit

latrines that become a reservoir of open defecation with flies in and out,

cockroaches in multitudes, smell from kilometers, impossible to wash,

maintenance is close to zero, easy to collapse, un friendly to children, adults

skeptical to get injured we can to shift the paradigm. To overcome this

challenge there is the need to shift from the use of local unimproved pit

latrines to something innovative and have suitable latrine designs that would

not only be cost-effective, environment-friendly and easy to construct but

also would be acceptable to people especially less privileged arise the concept

of low-cost but high-quality toilet called ‘SMART TOILET’ with other good

natural or artificial features. Here, natural SMART TOILET will be highly

emphasized and transformed as a result of cost, materials availability,

manufacturability, environment and performance.

According to SMEDAN (2019), SMART means;

S- Specific, M- Measurable, A- Achievable, R- Result-oriented, T- Target bound

Sensitization and promotion of durable but affordable toilet facilities is very

important. This is a situation of improved toilet designs that fits into all socio-

economic standard of a household and at the end achieves an assured privacy,

free from contamination and infections as well as total demarcation of feces

to human contact. Smart toilet is easy to clean and maintain, it uses less water

to flush, free from cockroaches, houseflies, nesting ground for mosquitoes,

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smell and irritation to use. It is more of a comfort toilet and easy to use by all

age groups. It ensures hygienic separation of human excrete from human

contact. In most African countries, especially some states in Nigeria have

actually migrated to the next higher level in terms of hygiene as open

defecation free (ODF) area. The types of toilets are as a result of different

spaces (open/close, public/private, internal/external, tangible/intangible)

and levels (upper/lower, large/small, necessity/luxury) are: Traditional pit

toilets, San Plat toilets, Conventional improved pit toilets, VIP toilets, Pour-

flush toilets, Compost toilets, Mobile toilets, Smart toilets, other toilets.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this paper are to:

1. Design a functional Smart Toilet that is COVID-19 compliant.

2. Identification of new approaches and methodologies in transforming

healthy Smart Toilet designs.

3. Supply and facilitate standard design methods, materials and

technology for a new Smart Toilet product in the era of COVID-19

pandemic.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In the late 2019, the World recorded the epidemics of Corona Virus,

emanating from China. Today, the U.S was highlighted as the first worst

country in terms of mortality rate due to COVID-19 pandemic. The provision

of safe water, sanitation and hygienic conditions is essential to protecting

human health during all infectious disease outbreaks, including the COVID-19

outbreak. Ensuring good WASH and waste management practices in

communities, homes, schools, marketplaces, prisons and health care facilities

will further help to prevent human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19

virus. The rights to water and to sanitation are part of the right to an adequate

standard of living (WHO, 2020). Most Nigerians do not have access and

provision for safe water, sanitation, and hygienic conditions which is essential

to protecting human health during the COVID-19 outbreak. Prevention of

human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus may be supported by

promotion of the rights to water and sanitation, and supporting water and

wastewater infrastructure and technicians to ensure good and consistently

applied WASH and waste management practices in communities, homes,

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schools, marketplaces, and healthcare facilities. Hence, this work is needed to

understand the risk of contaminated drinking water, environmental

transmission, and how to ensure toilet users are supported throughout the

crisis with the use of new Smart Toilet product to prevent COVID-19

infections. Considering these facts requires serious attention by the

stakeholders in finding solutions to the menace of COVID-19 pandemic, using

new Smart Toilets at various spaces and levels which will go a long way in

order to create conducive environment for a healthy living, stop open

defecation, strategically provide hand washing facilities and transform

Nigeria to be COVID-19 free.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Due to the global relevance of COVID-19, the world has come to realize the

fact that it is not a Chinese Virus, but a universal pandemic. Citing concerns

with “the alarming levels of spread and severity,” the WHO called for

governments to take urgent and aggressive action to stop the spread of the

virus (Human Right Watch, 2020). Internationally, many countries of the

were affected with high mortality rates as a result of highly contagious Corona

Virus infections have reached over two million deaths are increasing

geometrically. A Science Fiction book once predicted the tragedy of the

COVID-19 pandemic in the City of Wuhan according to an online conspiracy

theory, the American author Dean Koontz predicted the coronavirus outbreak

in 1981. His novel The Eyes of Darkness made reference to a killer virus called

“Wuhan-400” – eerily predicting the Chinese city where Covid-19 would

emerge. But the similarities end there: Wuhan-400 is described as having a

“kill-rate” of 100%, developed in labs outside the city as the “perfect”

biological weapon (The Guardian, 2020).

Another Science Fiction movie titled ‘Contagion’, featuring Jennifer Ehle and

other famous actors showcased similar effects of the so called COVID-19

pandemic. What these movies have that real life lacks is pacing. Steven

Soderbergh’s snappy Contagion, from 2011, opens with a title card reading

“DAY 2,” leaving us wondering for the rest of the movie about the day we

missed, while frantic pressure accompanies the spread of the MEV1 virus.

Gwyneth Paltrow dies foaming at the mouth, and drums beat along to the

action. Meanwhile, scientists hunt for the origin of the disease, tracing it back

through time to look for an antidote (Josephine, 2020). While, Africa is not left

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out in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic as the cases and casualties are

increasing arithmetically. The natural herbs from Madagascar is a welcome

idea in combating COVID-19 pandemic. The president of Madagascar Andry

Rajoelina has officially launched what he calls a local herbal remedy, which

he claims can prevent and cure the coronavirus (Eye Witness News, 2020).

Also, COVID-19 and West African countries are not left behind with several

efforts of using local herbs and indigenous unorthodox medicine, procedures

and protections, such as localized face masks and ventilators to curb the

menace of the infections. COVID-19 and the testing equipment from Senegal

is a welcome idea in combating COVID-19 pandemic. According to Marc

(2020) the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed Senegal to speed up the rollout of

a public e-commerce platform, projects for internet infrastructure

development and legislation governing data collection, paving the way for

new business opportunities. In Nigeria, efforts of the government and the

citizens can never be underestimated in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic

as the Federal Government has announced a N36m cash prize for any

Nigerian that finds cure for coronavirus and Lassa fever (Punch, 2020).m

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the development

of an interim national case management guideline for COVID-19 are:

1. Standard of management of COVID-19 cases

2. Sample collection procedure from suspect cases of COVID-19

3. Transfer of suspect / ill persons

4. Safe and dignified burial for suspect/confirmed cases (NCDC, 2020)

About 70 million people, out of a population of 171 million, lacked access to

safe drinking water, and over 110 million lacked access to improved

sanitation in 2013. Open defecation rates, at 28.5 per cent pose grave public

health risks. Every year, an estimated 124,000 children under the age of 5 die

because of diarrhoea, mainly due to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene.

Lack of adequate water and sanitation are also major causes of other diseases,

including respiratory infection and under-nutrition (World Bank, 2009).

Also, it is very important in order to promote developing countries to meet

the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) on water, sanitation, waste

management and to improve learning outcomes which can even be tailored

and targeted specifically to meet the needs of low-income communities

(World Bank, 2009). Nigeria is a country which places a great emphasis on

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cleanliness. A decree from the days of military government which is still in

force mandates that the final Saturday of every month is Sanitation Day,

meaning that travel is banned and a curfew enforced until 10 am. Families are

told to use the time when they are confined to tidy the home. Unfortunately,

once household waste is tidied, the problems begin. Nigeria's booming

population, an asset in economic growth terms, is placing great pressure on

solid waste management (SWM) systems which are in many cases already

either antiquated, informal or non-existent (Guardian News, 2016).

The aim of the health sector reform is to improve efficiency in performance,

ensure transparent and responsible management, limit political interference,

eliminate government’s involvement in utility management, management

and technical operations, encourage private investment in generation to

address inadequate supply and free government funds to finance other

critical welfare programmes. As a result, Bio-Power Environmental Solutions

Ltd says the establishment of high-quality public toilets can generate revenue,

create 11,000 jobs and promote a healthier environment in the country (The

Cable, 2017). Recently, an interesting alternative to creating septic tanks with

re-use materials has proven to help in controlling sanitation problems and

regulate waste disposal at low cost (thehomesteadsurvival.com, 2015).

Hence, the smart toilet architecture will exhibit the new approaches to design

and construction with innovations towards the attainment of open defecation

in Nigeria using Smart Toilet as related in the Table 1 below:

Table 1: A comparative analysis between an Unimproved Toilet and

Smart Toilet

S/NO UNIMPROVED TOILET

FEATURES

SMART TOILET FEATURES

1. High amount of water to flush Low amount of water to flush

and clean

2. Possibility of odour and flies No odour and No flies as seal

works against odours and

pathogens transmission

3. Unhygienic separation of

excreta from human contact

Waste not in direct contact

with the body

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4. Latrine with poor slab or

platform

Good slab or platform ensures

no collapse structure

5. High cost and low quality Low cost but high quality

6. Waste disposal problems and

lack of initiatives

Hygienic disposal of waste to

wealth initiatives

Source: Developed by the Authors, 2020

Also, it is very good to exhibit the new approaches to design and construction

with innovations towards the attainment of COVID-19 free environment by

also using the new Smart Toilet as related in the Table 2 below:

Table 2: A comparative analysis between a Smart Toilet and COVID-19

compliant Smart Toilet

Source: Developed by the Authors, 2020

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METHODOLOGY

The research methodology entails generation of requirement, engineering

specifications and Conceptual Design. The requirements for COVID-19 based

smart toilets are obtained via information gathering from medical facility

sites, medical personnel, patients and other expected users of such toilets.

The requirements are converted to engineering specifications. Thereafter, a

systematic design approach in Smart Toilet architecture design and

construction is applied for the conceptual design. Systematic design approach

involves functional analysis of the design problem. During functional analysis,

the main function required of the new smart toilet is decomposed to obtain

sub-functions. Furthermore, solutions are generated to the design problems

at sub-function level. Thereafter, the solutions are combined by solution

matching to obtain combinatorial solutions. Morphological Chart which

comprises of functions and solutions is constructed. Selection of the optimum

solution is based on criteria such as cost, materials availability, environment,

manufacturability performance, weight, efficiency e.t.c. all these criteria are

based on compliant of the Smart Toilet to the COVID-19 prevention.

Requirements Generation

The requirements were generated by consulting medical facilities related

handbooks, manuals, and articles. Equally, medical practitioners and other

expected users of the facility were interviewed. The bits of information

extracted via all the stated means are listed below.

1. Expected number of the users

2. Expected age of the users

3. Expected human parts in context

4. Expected gender analysis

5. Expected weather variance

6. Expected locations of the sanitary facilities

7. Expected population of the users

8. Expected users’ peak periods

9. Expected activity levels of the users

10. Expected literacy levels of the users

11. Expected behavioural change and attitude of the users

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Engineering Specifications

Furthermore, the information gathered from the requirement list are

converted to engineering specifications. The specifications are meant to

enhance communication of the user requirements to the product. As such the

product will be user centered. The information generated from the

engineering specification was used in developing functional analysis for

transforming the systematic conceptual design of the Covid -19 based smart

toilet.

Conceptual Design

Trevisan et al., defined design as an intelligent process of systematically

generating, evaluating and stipulating concepts for artifacts whose form and

function satiate customers’ needs and satisfy a set of constraints (Trevisan et

al., 2018). The approach to conceptual design adopted is systematic as

explained in according to Ramdhani and Jamari (2018), conceptual design

process entails; concept clarification, concept generation, concept selection

and concept development. The main function of the toilet is to enable a person

either with or without COVID-19- to urinate and defecate in a public toilet

without transmitting the disease to others or having the disease transmitted

to them. Before decomposing a function, the main function must be well

defined. Defining function entails expressing it input and output flow with

their respective properties. Flows are the entities that are inputted, processed

then outputted by feature. Inference can be made from the relationship

between input and output function. (Yuan, L., Liu, Y., Lin, Y., & Zhao, J. 2017).

The main function is decomposed to obtain the sub-function analysis listed

below:

Functional Analysis

1. To disinfect a person with/without COVID-19 before the Smart Toilet.

2. To allow access for a person with/without COVID-19 into the Smart

Toilet.

3. To enable a person with/without COVID-19 control the Smart Toilet

door by leg pedal or slide.

4. To enable a person with/without COVID-19 defecate or urinate in the

Smart Toilet.

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5. To enable a person with/without COVID-19 flush the Smart Toilet after

use.

6. To sanitize a person with/without COVID-19 before leaving the Smart

Toilet.

7. To enable a person with/without COVID-19 control the Smart Toilet

door by leg pedal or slide.

8. To disinfect a person with/without COVID-19 after the Smart Toilet.

Development of Morphological Matrix

Morphological matrix based conceptual design have proven to be highly

effective in concept generation. However, each of the concepts are often

evaluated quantitatively thereby making the evaluation process difficult.

Besides, the influence of the uncertainty posed by the predesigned

evaluations of the designers and customers are seldom taken into

consideration while building most morphological charts (Ma et al., 2017).

Morphological Chart enhances the generation of combinatorial solution

(Summers, 2019). The main idea behind this work is to relate the functions

listed above to some suggested solutions as tabulated in the Morphological

Chart / Matrix of Functions below:

Source: Developed by the Authors, 2020

The guiding principle here uses the selection of optimum criteria such as cost,

materials availability, environment, manufacturability, performance and

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weight, followed by solution matching to measure the efficiency and validity

of the Smart Toilet.

CONCLUSION

The smart toilet architecture deals with all the relevant aspects of internal

and external considerations of providing a comfortable and healthy space to

defecate and move from open defecation to open defecation free between

2025 to 2030 (Abdulmageed, 2018). The functional requirements are

converted to engineering specifications, systematic design approach in Smart

Toilet architecture design and construction that is applied for the conceptual

design. Systematic design approach involves functional analysis of the design

problem, required of the new smart toilet is decomposed to obtain sub-

functions. Furthermore, solutions are generated to the design problems at

sub-function level and the solutions are combined by solution matching to

obtain combinatorial optimal solutions based on the listed criteria and

solution options. A new smart toilet product was finally evolved and

transformed with a leg pedal control sliding door with fixed hand washing

facilities.

POLICY SUGGESTIONS

The following suggestions will be very important in the new smart toilet in

the era of COVID-19 pandemic and other deadly contagious diseases:

1. The need for the government of the day to provide enabling

environment and funding of the health sector for the production of new

smart toilet and strictly enforce the law the ‘Use of Toilet Campaign’,

advocacy on health, sanitation and hygiene in the Nigerian built

environment, sanitation marketing and finance towards the

attainment of Smart Toilet Architecture towards ODF and COVID-19

free Nigeria

2. Also, stakeholders in Public and Private Participation should sponsor

and organize massive enlightenment programmes, sensitization,

advocacy, workshops, promotions, conferences, seminars and

symposia in collaboration with all the media houses so that training

and re-training will take place in the health sector.

3. If the above are well implemented to its fullest, such a system of new

smart toilet architecture would yield better sanitation markets, better

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toilet structures, and healthier, ODF and COVID-19 free communities in

Nigeria.

REFERENCES

Abdulmageed Osunkunle ( 2018). ‘Training of Facilitators Workshop and

Capacity Building Support for Masons’, RUWASSA/unicef Sensitization

Workshop, Bauchi.

Eye Witness News (2020). ‘MADAGASCAR' RAJOELINA LAUNCHES LOCAL

CORONAVIRUS SO-CALLED REMEDY’ Available online from

https://ewn.co.za/2020/04/21/madagascar-president-launches-

coronavirus-remedy

Guardian News (2016). ‘Time to Flush Away Nigeria's Sanitation Problems’,

retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-

professionals-network/adam-smith-international-partner-

zone/sanitation-problem-nigeria-kaduna

Human Right Watch (2020). ‘Human Rights Dimensions of COVID-19

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